How do I determine if I have FAT32 or FAT16?

Question

Dimension 4100; WinME.

Primary HD had serious problems; Windows directory lost.

I've purchased replacement harddrive, but I don't know whether to format it FAT32 or FAT16. With no Windows, I can't follow the procedures Dell gives for figuring out if the old drive is FAT32 or FAT16.

Is there some way I can figure that out from DOS?? I can boot to DOS (via Norton Rescue Disk), and I found the "Command" directory, so I can run any WindowsME DOS commands, but haven't found any that will tell me if that drive is FAT32 or FAT 16.

Any ideas?

yybroida · Answer

Sorry; I hit wrong key and it posted twice.  Please ignore one of the pair.

osprey4 · Answer

Your drive should be formatted FAT32. When you run FDISK, it will ask if you want to enable large disk support. If you answer yes, it will create a FAT32 partition. Your ME disc should be able to do this.

yybroida · Answer

Thanks. I figured I would have no problem formatting the new disk either FAT32 or FAT16. But I didn't know for sure how the old disk was formatted. And I still don't have any method to check for sure.

But I think the fact that it's a 40GB disk and only had a single partition is a big clue that it was almost certainly FAT32.

So that's what I'm formatting the new disk as. :)

Storage, Drives & Media

How do I determine if I have FAT32 or FAT16?

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